PSU signs Climate Commitment

Pittsburg State University President Steve Scott opened a week of campus Earth Day activities on Monday, April 23, by signing the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. With President Scott’s signature, PSU became the first four-year university in Kansas to sign the commitment.

Pittsburg State University President Steve Scott opened a week of campus Earth Day activities on Monday, April 23, by signing the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. With President Scott’s signature, PSU became the first four-year university in Kansas to sign the commitment.

The signing ceremony was held on the banks of PSU’s University Lake.

“It’s been nearly two years since Pittsburg State University formally adopted sustainability as one of our six strategic goals,” Scott said. “It is now a lens through which we view all projects and an essential part of our character.”

The president noted a number of steps and projects the university has undertaken since those goals were adopted and he said they are already paying dividends.

A new geo-thermal heating and cooling system installed last year for McPherson Hall and Timmons Chapel has reduced energy usage in those buildings by more than 163,000 kilowatt hours or nearly 47 percent, Scott said. Campus recycling efforts kept 27 tons of material out of landfills last year, including more than 2,000 pieces of electronic waste, he said.

In the coming months you’ll be able to see our progress in sustainability for yourself, thanks to the addition of energy monitors throughout campus,” Scott said. “These electronic monitors will report building energy usage in real-time, and are another example of the technological advances we’re making the area of sustainability.”

The president also praised the university’s new bachelor of integrated studies degree with an emphasis in sustainability, society and resource management, which, he said, “will put graduates in a position to help solve some of the nation’s most difficult and most important problems.”